Symbol and dialogue.: A double structure of reception of the Gospel.

While the Fourth Gospel draws upon dialogues and symbols for the communication of revelation, contemporary theology often relegates them to an otherness constitutive of any ethic. Beginning with this rupture, irreducible to a simple reversal, this paper seeks to show how dialogue and symbolism, thanks to their dissimilarity, remain so essential to each other for the reception of the Gospel, of revelation, of salvation. The identification of the believer passes just as well through a dialogue born of a separation as by a symbol ordered to a gathering. In order to arrive at this conclusion, this paper assumes the task of defining the conditions necessary for each of the two significant formations to open upon a world and a community: a new being and act.